We never dreamed, when we began, that our postings would become so numerous and we would like to thank our many supporters for their continuing interest: the help given – so many messages and contributions – has been invaluable.

But now, because our blog has become more lengthy, its scroll-back system makes it difficult to read and we have gladly accepted the offer – as we described in the last posting – of one who has come forward and designed our new site.

The sequence of five posts, concerning Jim Curran’s victory over Jim Perrin and his libellous writing, together with this message, mark the end of our postings on this site. All existing posts have been transferred, (and categorised for ease of reference), and – with those yet to be written – will be found at www.Jacssisters.org.

Jim Curran kindly gave us permission to use, however we wished, the information in his absorbing autobiography “Here, There and Everywhere”, and we are most grateful to him for that freedom.

Not only has this enabled us to reveal yet another aspect of Jim Perrin’s nature but, through our postings, to give greater exposure to this particular example of his modus operandi… and “to set the record straight” – in this case for Jim Curran’s sake.

This posting is taken from the text of Chapter 28 of his book.

jac’s sisters.

*******

During the 1990s I was involved in a protracted saga of litigation that provoked an astonishing amount of vitriol and ill-feeling throughout the British climbing world. During, and ever since that time, I have remained silent and only now, 20 years later, am I prepared to comment on the issues involved, and I do so now with some trepidation. However, as my side of the story has never been made public, I think it is now time to do so. Before I start, I must make it quite clear that the magazine with which I took issue, ‘Climber and Hillwalker’, has since been sold, is now called simply ‘Climber’ and is now under new management and control, with whom, obviously, I have absolutely no quarrel.

My problems with the magazine concerned the writings of Jim Perrin, who, over the years, has contributed to all the British climbing press but his writing has, in my opinion, been flawed by a streak of bitterness and vitriol, and over the years many of his contemporaries have been at the receiving end of wounding comments or jibes, often made about events apparently long gone and forgotten.

When Jim Perrin joined ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ after an acrimonious departure from ‘High’ magazine, it became apparent from his column that he felt that everything that came out of Sheffield (where ‘High’ was based) was bad news. His magazine had also coined the phrase ‘the Sheffield mafia’, referring to a nebulous group of elderly climbers who apparently exercised a malevolent influence over climbing politics through the pages of ‘High’ and ‘Mountain’ magazines. What started as a tongue in cheek joke in the pages of ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ soon began to be referred to as an accepted fact.

Over a period of two or three years I grew progressively more irritated at Jim Perrin’s snipings, but refused to rise to the bait, though I became increasingly puzzled as to why I was being singled out. I could only assume it was due to my friendship with ‘High’ Editor, Geoff Birtles, though I still don’t know if this was really the case. Then in March 1991, Perrin wrote an article explaining what it was like to climb with some of the greats of British rock-climbing: Joe Brown, Don Whillans, Johnny Dawes, Martin Boysen and Ron Fawcett. It was, I thought, a rather sycophantic piece, but at the same time implying that Perrin himself was in that league. Towards the end of the piece, and quite out of the blue, he also wrote about the worst climbers he’d ever climbed with and named Joe Tasker, Nick Estcourt, Alex McIntyre and me. I was astounded that he could cite Nick, Alex and Joe who were, of course, all dead, and almost flattered to be named in their company, except that the words he used about me were, “in an incompetence league entirely on his own – Big Jim Curran who once put the fear of God into me on a first ascent in Pembroke by starting up the 5c crux before I had even managed properly to belay on the top of the crag”. He was referring to our first ascent of The Voyage Out which we had done in 1979.

I was bemused, hurt, and baffled when, 12 years later, Perrin made his comments in ‘Climber and Hillwalker’. Others were more shocked than I was, and pointed out that, as a climbing cameraman often employed by TV companies, I could have a problem with insurance. The word ‘incompetence’ and the phrase ‘put the fear of God into me’ could be cited as evidence that a TV company should not have employed me if, in the event of an accident, blame was attached to me. The article seemed to have been read by lots of people and when I was accosted in a Bristol street by a climber I scarcely recognised, and asked why Jim Perrin seemed to be carrying out some kind of vendetta against me, I reluctantly decided to at least seek legal advice.

A QC recommended a young solicitor, Rhory Robertson, who worked for a firm called Swepstone Walsh in Lincoln’s Inn Field. His opinion seemed to be very reasonable. He thought it was clearly a libellous statement that could be damaging to future employment if it were not retracted and a full apology printed. His words were to the effect that, while it wasn’t exactly the crime of the century, a solicitor’s letter should do the trick, plus a few hundred pounds for my trouble and anxiety.

I was appalled when ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ immediately refused to apologise and horrified when they then employed Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners, the celebrated libel lawyers frequently lampooned in ‘Private Eye’, to fight their case. I imagine the magazine assumed that I would be quickly frightened off by the big guns, and they were almost right. The problem was that, from the very beginning, cases like this cost a lot of money and I couldn’t afford to lose. I felt that with each exchange of letters I was getting more and more committed – I simply couldn’t back out and lose what was for me a huge amount of money. The magazine, of course, and Jim Perrin, were covered by insurance and could go on fighting without any personal financial risk at all. I still had a small sum left over from my mother’s will which I’d kept for a rainy day. And this seemed to have just arrived.

Over the months the letters from ‘the opposition’ became more and more eccentric and wide-ranging. Initially ‘Climber and Hillwalker’s main line of defence was that the remarks were meant to be a joke, but, as they then spent a great deal of time and effort trying to justify them, it seemed that even they couldn’t see the funny side. In a tacit acceptance that the problems with Perrin and me went back a long way, the magazine then introduced a new and sinister element into the case.

In 1986 and 1987 I had served on the judging panel of the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and was chairman of the panel in my second year. During that year I had been shocked to find out that Jim Perrin had questioned my integrity in judging a book by John Barry on the events on K2 in which I had been involved the previous year. I offered to resign immediately but my offer was refused and my two fellow judges supported me, as did the Committee of the Boardman Tasker Award whose members included Chris Bonington, Dorothy Boardman and Charlie Clarke.

It is worth pointing out that my then full-time lecturing job at Bristol Polytechnic regularly involved assessing the work of art and design students. This is an activity that might seem to an outsider to be a particularly subjective activity and one prone to prejudice, favouritism, or personal animosity. In fact, after nearly 30 years of both participating in and observing assessment procedures, I am still impressed by the way in which we, the lecturers, could make judgements that, while not always unanimous, rarely varied significantly, and were supported by the external assessor who had no prior knowledge of previous grades. So the idea of my personal integrity being under suspicion was one I bitterly resented and refuted. It could even be used against me in my college life.

It came as a major surprise and shock when ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ produced a copy of a letter that Jim Perrin had sent to Chris Bonington which not only questioned my judgement over the John Barry book, but, worse, accused me of influencing the judges the previous year in order to ensure that an author who was also a contributor to ‘High’ magazine won the award. As Perrin himself had won the award the year before that, when he was still working for ‘High’, it would be two out of two for the magazine he now despised.

I must admit that when I saw the letter, which had been sent to Chris Bonington, Dorothy Boardman, and the then Secretary of the BMC, Dennis Gray, I was mortified. How do you refute something for which there is absolutely no evidence one way or the other?

What happened was that I had read some, but not all, of the books submitted for the 1986 BT award, then gone to K2 on what had been a far longer expedition than I had expected. When I eventually returned, all the books had been submitted and my two fellow judges, Bill Murray and Al Alverez, had tended to favour a book by Walt Unsworth on the history of Mont Blanc. I thought the book workmanlike, well-researched and written, but inevitably based on second-hand experience. The book that stood out for me was one by Stephen Venables called ‘Painted Mountains’ which described intense, first-hand experiences on two Himalayan expeditions. The writing was fresh, and, to my mind, the book was a far greater creative achievement than Walt Unsworth’s. I pointed this out to the other judges who, to my delight, both agreed and Venables duly won the BT award. At the time I had no idea or even interest , in whether or not Venables was going to work for ‘High’ magazine, my mind being fully occupied with the enormous tragedies on K2 that year, and the imminent task of writing my own book on the subject, as well as producing a film.

Now, five years later, I was made aware of all the undercurrents of suspicion and ill-feeling that I had been blissfully ignorant of at the time. I simply couldn’t think that anyone in their right mind would believe that I would risk fixing an award for someone I knew, but not particularly well, and who, like many other climbers, was going to write a column in one of the three British climbing magazines. I was frankly baffled. But I was on a steep learning curve and Rhory explained to me that, whilst I was suing Perrin and the magazine for libel over a couple of sentences, they would use anything to question my integrity. I became very depressed and anxious, wondering what else they would manage to dredge up.

There were, though, some good signs. Rhory kept asking ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ to settle out of court and at one point they offered to put a small sum into court as a compromise. But there was no offer of an apology, which was all I really wanted, and in any case, the sum was so small that I could still end up out of pocket. I decided to fight on, though by now I was losing both weight (no bad thing) and sleep. As Rhory kept telling me, the important thing was to keep your eye on the ball, and on the allegations that I was in ‘an incompetence league entirely on his own’. We had some fairly impressive witnesses who were prepared to refute this. Among them were Paul Nunn, Joe Simpson, Chris Bonington and Ian McNaught Davis, all of whom had climbed with me often enough to know what they were talking about. While I would never claim to be anything other than an average performer, I had over 30 years’ experience and was well able to look after myself in a wide variety of mountain environments.

The date for the case was arranged. I was beside myself with worry for by now I was arranging to re-mortgage my house to pay the solicitor’s and barrister’s fees. If I lost, I would have to sell everything, as I would then be faced with the legal fees from both sides. Rhory (and common sense) suggested that this was highly unlikely, but once a case goes to court anything can happen. Two weeks before the trial, Rhory took me round the High Court and we stood in the actual court where it was to be heard. It seemed quite small and very intense; even the lighting gave it a sense of drama and seriousness. I didn’t know whether to be appalled or encouraged and tried to imagine being cross-examined by a hostile barrister. I just couldn’t understand why the opposition were going through with it and prayed that they would offer a decent out-of-court settlement.

Throughout all this time, the climbing rumour factory had been working overtime. Popular myths were that Mac was paying all my bills for me, that I was doing all this at the behest of ‘High’ editor Geoff Birtles (who, in fact, had always tried to warn me off taking legal action) and that I wanted to see Jim Perrin bankrupt (quite absurd, since, as explained earlier, all his ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ costs were fully insured. What was undoubtedly true, though, was the fervent wish that the whole business would suddenly just go away which, only days before the case was due to be heard, it did.

What happened arose out of a terrible tragedy. Andy Fanshawe was the BMC’s National Officer. He was a talented climber and a very promising young writer. I didn’t know him well but had met him first at K2 Base Camp when he had turned up with a team of young activists attempting the traverse of Chogolisa, an ascent they completed in fine style. I had supplied a rather good photo for Andy’s book, and, though we never climbed together, I always enjoyed his company and boundless enthusiasm. It all stopped suddenly in March 1992 on Eagle Ridge, Lochnagar, when Andy suffered a horrendous fall and was killed outright. Hundreds of friends and family attended his memorial service and afterwards, over a pint, I found myself talking to Stephen Venables who asked me how the libel case was going. Strangely enough, I had never thought to involve Stephen in any way and it never occurred to me that he could be of much help. It wasn’t the right time or place to discuss it and I just said something to the effect that I thought it was a bit rich that Stephen’s book, which I still admired hugely, had been dragged into a legal battle, and left it at that. I drove back to Bristol with an overwhelming feeling that Andy’s death made my battles seem trivial and pointless. But they were real just the same.

When I got home to Sheffield at the weekend, I found an envelope with a Bath postmark. It was a letter from Stephen enclosing two of the letters he had received from Jim Perrin when Stephen was considering working for ‘High’. I read them, absolutely thunderstruck; I couldn’t believe what was before my eyes. For here was Jim Perrin wooing Stephen Venables and praising his book to the skies. Not only did he think it should win the Boardman Tasker award, but he, Jim Perrin, was prepared to try to influence the judges to make sure the award didn’t go to Walt Unsworth. He finished by expressing his hope that, for a second year running, the award would go to one of the ‘High’ writing team. How Perrin could have carried on his defence knowing that these letters might still exist is something I shall never understand.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that after this monumental own goal, ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ settled the case in my favour within days, and I was pleased to receive an apology and substantial damages. Sadly, references to the case continued to be made by people who should have known better, somehow implying that I, who had risked everything in fighting on my own against a large publishing group, was undermining the right of free speech in climbing writing. The whole episode left a nasty taste in my mouth, and it is something I would never dream of going through again if I could possibly help it. But when it happens and you find things in print that are seriously damaging to your reputation, you sometimes have to stick your head above the parapet. I certainly don’t regret what I did, only the protracted worry and stress it incurred. I certainly found out who my friends were (and weren’t) and I am eternally grateful to those who were prepared to stand up in court and defend me. But I’m glad they never had to.

When (as Jacssisters) we posted our first entry in September, 2010, we planned to write only a dozen or so pieces. The intention was to counter what we knew to be the egregious lies which had been published about our late sister.

But Jim Perrin, the author of those lies about Jac, has – we since discovered – a long-established history of reprehensible behaviour.

Many of those hurt by him have told us of their experiences and this information, together with so much other extraordinary detail which we have found, was added to our “blog” so, lengthier by far than originally it was intended to be, it has become unwieldy and therefore time-consuming.

May we now tell you of our new and completely re-organised site. We were approached by someone, an expert in their field, who kindly offered to help us; and the newly designed site benefits from the detailed attention given by one whom we now gratefully acknowledge to be our generous benefactor.

Jim Curran, in his autobiography, described with remarkable restraint his anxiety as to the outcome of the impending case – Right may not always make Might – yet it was necessary that it should be undertaken.

His re-telling of that period, considering what was ranged against him – Jim Perrin, it might seem, secure with the protection of his Friends in High Places (and their ‘top’ solicitors; and their insurers….) and the inevitable legal uncertainties – was not extreme: on the contrary, he wrote in measured terms and, one senses, More in Sorrow than in Anger.

What must he have felt those years before, aware as he had become of the attempted character assassination by Jim Perrin? What must he have feared once the date for the court hearing had been decided?

And, we wonder, what others have felt who have found themselves – through no fault of their own – at crossed swords with Jim Perrin? We have always known that he does not engage in fair fight and it is our experience that he could be called a ‘back-stabber’. We know of other undeniable examples – and have shown several in the course of our blog – of the underhandedness of Jim Perrin, and we continue to be amazed that he has been allowed to get away with such behaviour over the years: we ask ourselves – ‘Why?’

Then came a quite unexpected twist in the story….

* * * *

Stephen Venables, like Jim Curran another exceptional climber and author, had kept – and now sent to him – two letters which had been written by Jim Perrin some years earlier: letters which were the absolute evidence of what can only be called Jim Perrin’s duplicity and in which he had offered to influence the judges himself – to influence them in Stephen Venables’ favour in a forth-coming book competition (these letters still exist….). When also considered with the letter he had sent to the Boardman-Tasker Committee in 1987, falsely accusing Jim Curran of that very misconduct they clearly show his perfidious nature.

How much similar pressure might Jim Perrin have overtly or covertly applied in the course of his literary ‘career’? How many other such letters might he have written? We remember, as though it was yesterday, the ‘anonymous’ letter to our late sister’s landlord written within only eight weeks of her death in which he told vile lies about her children in an attempt to cause their eviction from their family home. (Ref: ‘Jim Perrin writes an anonymous letter’)

For the full significance of that latest development in Jim Curran’s legal case we will be quoting from his own text: we have his permission to do so – he holds the copyright – and his own words cannot be bettered.

At last, after years of ignoring Jim Perrin and refusing to rise to the insults and irritations emanating from that quarter, Jim Curran, albeit reluctantly, had sought legal advice. A course of action was decided upon and a barrister retained: a date was fixed for the court.

Jim Perrin, who by his overweeningarrogance and deeply-rooted malice, (for as such it may surely be described), was the cause of this dispute, yet was fortuitously upheld by his cronies, the publishers: they, at first making light of any suggestion of culpability, tried to imply that the remarks which their man had so offensively made were intended as jest, and they offered ridiculous amounts to Jim Curran, with no apology, thinking they could buy him off. They had, of course, closed ranks around their favoured one and were practising their brinkmanship.

* * * *

Jim’s solicitor had warned him that while they would be suing Jim Perrin (and the publishers) regarding the two sentences which he and his team considered libellous, the opposition would use anything, in their own defence, to cast doubt on his integrity.

He had been aware in 1987 that Jim Perrin had indeed, ‘on the record’, questioned his integrity. This was concerning his judgement of a book entered for the Boardman-Tasker Award in the previous year – and following this defamation, showing an ‘integrity’ which we believe in Jim Perrin is entirely lacking, he offered his resignation as a member of the judging panel with immediate effect.

It is to the eternal credit of his two fellow judges and the Committee of the Boardman-Tasker Award (which included the widow of Peter Boardman) that they refused his offer to resign, believed him, and strongly supported him.

* * * *

Years later then, in 1992, when this court case was pending, it was surprising to find the following stratagem employed: the defendants produced a copy of a letter, given them by Jim Perrin, which originally he had written to Sir Chris Bonington back in 1987 and in which not only had he queried Jim Curran’s integrity but, worse, in which he had accused him of influencing his co-judges in 1986.

The accusation was a fabrication – implication – and, as explained, the judges had rejected it…

That entire episode does, however, speak volumes as to how Jim Perrin has comported himself over the years, and it demonstrates how ‘well in’ he was with the publishing hierarchy in that they chose to believe him, with his flimsy false ‘evidence’, and to continue in their support of him.

* * * *

So: Jim Perrin wrote, in 1987, a deliberately and potentially damaging – not to say damning – letter to Sir Chris Bonington (with copies to Dorothy Boardman and Charlie Clarke) accusing, falsely, Jim Curran of lack of integrity and of the intention to influence the judges adversely. Jim Perrin’s words bore no relation to the truth and the letter, essentially, was malicious in intent and in execution. The recipients disregarded it.

Infamously, (moving forward to 1992), this same letter was, it was suggested, going to be produced in court as evidence for the defence!

More particularly, it seems to us, that for them to state this was their intention could be seen as a veiled attempt to threaten Jim Curran. Although the letter had proved ineffective when originally Jim Perrin had penned it, perhaps he thought that the passage of time rendered it more harmful…

There is the possibility that his publishers were not fully aware of the letter’s ‘history’ or that it was a letter which had, the first time round, been given no credence and had failed of its purpose.

Oh, the subtlety: to write a letter accusing someone; to keep a copy; to produce it again, years later, as if it did have the veracity of good evidence – and had originally been believed…

Jim Perrin’s effrontery is phenomenal.

For the publishers to have been prepared to show that letter as ‘evidence’ – the letter of which Jim Perrin had carefully kept a copy and given to them (so convenient, for him to have kept it safe all those years), to indicate that they would be showing it in court – this while Jim Curran was yet trying to reach a fair settlement with them, their ‘offers’, so far, having been paltry and still no hint of an apology – was, in our opinion, pressure which looks rather like an attempt to BLACKMAIL him into acquiescence.

Nowhere in his book has Jim Curran suggested this himself – it is our own, completely independent, interpretation. What is certain is that Jim Perrin had felt sufficiently confident of the power of his old letter, and of his ‘power’ to influence his publishers, that he made it available to them and their legal advisors: they were then convinced that not only did they hold a winning hand but, with that (deceitful) letter, a trump card.

After an eleven year hiatus an article was published in ‘Climber and Hillwalker’ which contained seriously offensive material concerning Jim Curran. How strange that Jim Perrin seemed to have set up a vendetta against his former fellow-climber; at the least, to have been conducting what could only be described as a smear campaign.

Did he feel guilt (or any remorse, we wonder) about what obviously had been his cavalier handling of that climb in 1979? Perhaps he was aware that although, so far, Jim Curran had not publicly discussed it he might yet write about it giving his accurate account of what had taken place that day on Mewsford Point; did Jim Perrin – as attack is thought by some to be the best form of defence – decide to write the highly questionable and, as it turned out, actually libellous article, to pre-empt any such account?

We mentioned in our earlier posting that Jim Perrin had not, until then, written anything negative about that climb, nor had he indicated previously that there had been anything of which to complain…

Jim goes on to describe how others had been reporting, and repeating to him for some time, the slurs being spoken about him, it would seem at every opportunity, by Jim Perrin: it was only, finally, when this article was published, written by Jim Perrin and – as we wrote in our original posting on the subject: ‘Jim Perrin Loses a Court Case?…’ – ‘most vilely impugning his reputation’, that Jim, strongly supported by his friends and colleagues (as he fully enlarged upon in his book), decided he could no longer afford to dismiss or ignore Jim Perrin’s attempts to slight him nor simply to brush away this buzzing fly.

Not only was Jim Curran a climber of significance, an artist and an author, he was also a Himalayan film-maker of repute. His very real concern now was that ‘as a climbing camera-man often employed by TV companies, I could have a problem with insurance. The word “incompetence” and phrase “put the fear of God into me” could be cited as evidence that a TV company should not have employed me if, in the case of an accident, blame was attached to me.’

In an earlier posting, (‘Jim Perrin loses a court case?…’), we were referring to the case which, it had been decided, was to be brought against him and we are now able to give the facts told us by the other person most nearly concerned – ‘the injured party’.

In 1979 Jim Perrin was climbing with a fellow climber, Jim CURRAN, on the sea-cliffs of Wales. The step by step and the finger-tip-hold progression of this climb – the attempt of a new route on the Mewsford Point – is documented in chapter twenty of Jim Curran’s autobiography, ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ (published in Spring, 2012), and is described minutely in climbing terms which will be recognised by all rock-climbers: even to non-climbers it is apparent from his words that Jim, as Jim Perrin’s climbing partner on that occasion, was placed in some danger and experienced considerable disquiet as he followed.

He wrote:

‘I was never too sure about my feelings for Jim Perrin. Because of our mutual interest [in climbing] and some similarity with our names, people often got us confused, to my amusement and to his irritation.’ – ‘but unlike, say, Paul Nunn or Joe Brown, he [JP] didn’t seem to have any sympathy for, or understanding of, his partners – me in this case. I felt his climbing was very much for his own self-fulfilment and I was just a portable belayer, a feeling that grew stronger as the day wore on.’

Jim’s specific and detailed record of that climb is perhaps too involved to be copied here, full as it is of climbing-speak and descriptions of the climbing equipment and paraphernalia absolutely necessary to life and limb of the climber; but really, if at all possible, it should be read in order to realize the full impact of what Jim is relating.

He ended the chapter, and the story of the climb – a climb which, it might be said, was memorable for all the wrong reasons – by saying: ‘So Jim [Perrin] had his new route and we were both still alive.’ – ‘Later he wrote a good article about it for the Climbers’ Club ‘Journal’.’ And, we know, that he wrote of it in the anthology, ‘Extreme Rock’ and that he had also spoken of their new climb as ‘Epic’.

It is particularly important to stress, in light of developments years later, that in neither of these pieces did Jim Perrin so much as hint that he had, at that time, misgivings or criticism of any kind about the calibre of Jim Curran’s climbing; which, by common consent, despite his self-deprecatory description of his own ability, was certainly equal if not, over-all, above that of Jim Perrin – more broadly experience-based and with a larger, more varied range. Their climb was graded E2 5c.

* * * *

We have spoken with several climbers – climbers who, although too modest to claim it of themselves, are exceptionally experienced in their own right and well thought of in the climbing community– who after reading Jim’s autobiography and his description of the climb commented to us:

‘Clearly Perrin was highly motivated to do this route and was thoughtless, and certainly irresponsible, towards his anchor-man.’

‘Jim Curran obviously found himself in a horrible situation.’

‘A responsible climber, leading, should have – as an equal duty to their ‘second’ – made sure that they were well-anchored.’

‘It is evident from the account that Jim Perrin was irresponsible, careless (in the proper sense of that word) and was putting his climbing ‘second’ in real and perceived danger.’

* * * *

Jim Curran, on the other hand, and with masterly understatement, summarised his account of the climb by writing: ‘So a gripping day went into the memory bank, and there it stayed for 11 years.’

We notice that ‘Llywarch, “yrhenwr”, (Portland, Oregon)’ writes, in the first line of his sneering review of ‘Into the Silence’ – by Wade Davis: ‘One thing that puzzled me about this book was that, despite the tide of effusive comment here [America] and in the British press,…’

This, in our opinion, is the use of a ‘red herring’ to imply that he – ‘Llywarch’ – (whom we believe to be Jim Perrin) is, really, not on our shores.

And, he continues: ‘it didn’t pick up any of the mountaineering awards – the Boardman-Tasker, the myriad categories at Banff Mountaineering Book Festival for which it might have been eligible.’

His wording is contrived: the book could not have been awarded a prize if not put forward, and it was the author’s decision – presumably with the best advice possible – which ‘competition’ he chose to enter. ‘Llywarch’ clearly seeks, in his introductory passage, to imply that the book did not receive their awards – perhaps would not have done so.

We remember that Jim Perrin, by coincidence, was on the panel of judges for that Banff Mountaineering Book Award in 2012 – clearly he would not have voted for it. (And do notice ‘his’ ubiquitous little slurs against ‘the English’ further on in the review – ref: our blog ‘Jim Perrin admits to being racist’.)

We remain as certain as ever that ‘Llywarch’ IS Jim Perrin, and it is interesting that the review was posted on the British Amazon thread and not on the separate American Amazon review site – across the Atlantic – where, in his opening paragraph, he is claiming to be.

On the American site, ‘Into the Silence’ has, so far, received 149 reviews: 93 of them 5 star and 36 4 star, and, as well, in this country a further 100 reviews – 77 5 star and 14 4 star.

Surely, ‘Llywarch’ (JP?) is swimming against ‘the tide’, either here or across the ocean, with this disparaging and positively insulting review, and his measly grant of 2 stars? Who does he think he is?

* * * * *

Jim Perrin’s (sorry, ‘Llywarch’s’) remarks that he has ‘seldom come across a book that so cried out for a firm and knowledgeable editor.’ is risible: ‘It weighs in at not far short of 700 pages and could have been half that length…’

This from someone whom we remain convinced is the author of ‘Snowdon’ (also reviewed by ‘Llywarch’ – with 5 stars). It was a book not only seven years late in the delivery (ref: review by ‘Farkins’ on Amazon, 25/11/12, but posted elsewhere, we understand, by Huw Jenkins of the Snowdonia society*), but one which exceeded, by more than double, the originally agreed word-count: thus the beautiful photographs by Ray Wood – a brilliant Snowdonia photographer – who had also been commissioned, and had delivered on time, for inclusion in the book were, as are the eggs and nestlings of the cuckoo’s deceived and put-upon ‘hosts’, jettisoned.

Despite the sycophantic and ingratiating comments made about the publishers, by ‘Llywarch’, on the ‘Snowdon’ (Amazon) review thread, Gomer Press should feel ashamed that they were unable to edit Jim Perrin: that book would, without a doubt, have benefited from (as ‘Llywarch’ put it) ‘a firm and knowledgeable editor’, and, more so, from Ray Wood’s photographs for, as Alice thought: ‘…. what is the use of a book without pictures…?’

Whether he be Jim Perrin or ‘Llywarch’ the reviews written by this man are questionable and often their content is such that it is hardly possible to take him seriously.

*Yes, it was also published in ‘Natur Cymru’, on 29/12/12, by Huw Jenkins – ‘Farkins’?

Was this review, perhaps, tinged with irony? Certainly it was honest, and revealing of the background of the book’s delayed publication. Those details which we have highlighted (the word-count over-run, the seven years wait, the (shameful) non-inclusion of Ray Wood’s commissioned photographs) need not have been mentioned: we think that Jim Perrin would have preferred that they had not. But it is good to see that people are noticing, and speaking out, and we feel they were details which were quite rightly brought to the attention of the public, and not just, conveniently (for Jim Perrin) ignored.